1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to network system security, and more particularly relates to systems and methods for automatic detection, monitoring and reporting of network vulnerabilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
The reliability and security of a network is essential in a world where computer networks are a key element in intra-entity and inter-entity communications and transactions. Various tools have been used by network administrators, government, security consultants, and hackers to test the vulnerabilities of target networks, such as, for example, whether any computers on a network can be accessed and controlled remotely without authorization. Through this intensive testing, a target network can be “hardened” against common vulnerabilities and esoteric attacks. Existing testing systems, however, produce inconsistent results, use techniques that are unproven or that damage the target network, fail to respond to changing network environments or to detect new vulnerabilities, and report results in difficult to understand, text-based reports.
Well-known network security tools now exist to test network paths for possible intrusion. From a testing point, simple commands such as traceroute and ping can be used to manually map a network topography, and determine roughly what network addresses are “alive” with a computer “awake” on the network (i.e., determine which computers are on and are responding to network packets). A tool such as a port scanner can be used to test an individual target computer on the target network to determine what network ports are open. If open ports are found, these ports may provide access for possible intrusion, and potentially represent a vulnerability that can be exploited by a malicious hacker.
Some suites combining various network tools attempt to follow a quasi-automated process to test target computers on a target network. These suites provide variations on the tools described above, and provide long-form text-based output based on the outcome of this testing. The output of these security tests are extremely technical, and require extensive knowledge of network communications in order to interpret and provide advice based on the results. Thus, these partially automated suites do not provide comprehensive security to an entity seeking to “harden” its network.
Further, some security suites actually risk substantial damage to the target network. For example, while the use of malformed network packets to test a target computer can provide extensive information from the target and feedback on the security of the target, these malformed packets can destabilize the target computer in unpredictable ways. This sometimes results in a short-term loss of information to the target computer or, in more serious cases, a complete crash of the target computer operating system or hardware.
In other cases, the testing method used by existing suites is not reliable. If a network port scanning method employed on a target computer is, for example, 80% accurate over time, then a complete test of all 216 ports on a single computer may result in approximately 13,000 ports incorrectly identified as potentially running vulnerable services. Over an entire target network, such “false positives” make it virtually impossible to determine the true security level of the target network
Existing testing methods lack a standard, quantitative method for objectively comparing the security of a target network or target computer to other systems. Typically, a target network or target computer is ranked only as “high risk,” “medium risk,” or “low risk.” However, such a three-tier system alone provides very little substantive feedback or comparative information about changes in the network over time, the relative weight of different vulnerabilities in determining the resulting risk level, or objective assessments of network security among otherwise heterogeneous network environment.